Resurrection of the Author (short story)
Auteur's Abecedarium was a 2021 online short story written and illustrated by Aristide Twain, featuring the use of the Faction Paradox character Auteur, commercially licensed from his creator Jacob Black.
The story was also an official crossover between the Doctor Who universe and the continuity of The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids, on whose official website it was released as the final installment of the series' 2020 Advent Calendar (alongside a simultaneous Issuu release). The story was actually the second DWU crossover in the Advent Calendar, and directed tied in with the first: Auteur's Abecedarium by Jacob Black.
Publisher's summary
Issuu version
Solo edition of the 2021 New Year's Day crossover between "The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids" and the "Doctor Who" universe, featuring a licensed appearance by the DWU character of Auteur. Written & illustrated by Aristide Twain. This edition contains additional material not present in the website version.
Plot
Auteur is trapped in an empty oxbow timeline, left behind after the "Noble-woman" through whom he had created a twisted parallel world managed to put Time back on track. Alone and dying, he breaks down crying — but actually cries ink, and for a very practical purpose. He uses the ink and his finger to scrawl some ancient glyphs on the pavement, which state "This is only the beginning". He believes that, however long it may take, this will ensure that he eventually returns.
Centuries later, three Retconning Crocodiles arrive in the oxbow timeline, scouting it out to see if it would make a suitable base. They find Auteur and awaken him, physically regressing his body to an earlier point in his lifetime to be able to converse with him. They demonstrate to him that they have an understanding of the universe that is compatible with his, and make him an offer: they will resurrect him more lastingly, if he agrees to help them try to get the better of the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids.
Flattered, Auteur agrees. Because they "want [him] at his best", the Crocodiles regress him back along his timeline once again, having him carry out the work during his imprisonment in the Shadow Spire. Once this is done, Auteur wakes up, alone but now in a revitalised body — finding that he once again has his shadow-skin, and that even his old grimoire has been returned to him. Surprised at the Crocodiles having seemingly made no attempt to trick him out of his just deserts, Auteur soon discovers that he has indeed been outsmarted — the Crocodiles have deposited him back where he started, in the crumbling oxbow timeline, which scholars will one day call the Sanctum of the Heretic.
Characters
References
Events
- The First Auction in Heaven happened during a period in the Third Universe's history that the Retconning Crocodiles call "its temporal Wilderness Years", an era characterised by temporal warfare, wanton retconning, and plentiful "flotsam and jetsam of history".
Individuals
- The Retconning Crocodiles claim that the Creator of the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids was the equivalent of "a lovechild of Urizen and Nikola Tesla" if that child had then "pursued a double career in robotics and biodata-manipulation".
- Auteur is described by the Crocodiles as having once beena Lord of the Third Universe… a Sun Builder", further defining him as "a living sprocket in its celestial machinery".
- Auteur likes to think of himself as "a dread villain".
Locations
- The Sanctum of the Heretic's sky is "reddened by paradox". It is disdainfully referred to by one of the Crocodiles as "Beetle dung".
Organisations
- The Retconning Crocodiles belong to the Collective of Retconning Crocodiles.
Universes
- The Cupid Homeworld is a pocket dimension.
- Although now dwelling in the Time Sewers, the Crocodiles claim to have originated in the Prime Universe, like the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids.
Notes
- The "scholarly note" giving its name to the Sanctum of the Heretic and mentioning the actor David Bradley is unique to the ebook/Issuu version of the story, not being present in the website version.
- Bradley is better-known to Doctor Who fans in the real world for having portrayed the First Doctor in various media from 2017 onwards. Bradley is said to be active in the year 6267 and is addressed as "the Right Venerable Sir David Bradley, Res.", suggested that Bradley has been resurrected by the 63rd century.
- The title of this story is a joke based on the term from 20th century literary criticism, "death of the author".
Continuity
- Auteur is briefly regressed to a face he wore prior to becoming his familiar skeletal self: an old man with a grey beard, (PROSE: Going Once, Going Twice) as well as to his days of imprisonment inside the Shadow Spire. (PROSE: A Bloody (And Public) Domaine) It is while back in this period of his life that he writes an Abecedarium meant for the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids. (PROSE: Auteur's Abecedarium)
- The Retconning Crocodiles claim that they attended the First Auction in Heaven before erasing all traces of their visit from Time to avoid being drawn into its universe's then-ongoing temporal conflicts. (PROSE: Going Once, Going Twice (short story)
- Auteur's universe is spoken of by the Retconning Crocodiles as "the Third Universe". (AUDIO: Quinnis)
- Auteur was played by [REDACTED] on the BBC television series, F[REDACTED] P[REDACTED], between 2067 and 7898. (PROSE: Auteur's Abecedarium)
